


Per Annum

by Nike_SGA



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, I still have a lot of feelings, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 05:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15187451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nike_SGA/pseuds/Nike_SGA
Summary: “Three years by my side…I’d think you’d know me better than that.”





	Per Annum

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about a hundred years ago and it's languished on my LJ ever since. I’ve possibly taken a liberty or two with the timescale, but hopefully I’ve avoided any glaring errors. 
> 
> Spoilers: General S1, more specifically 1.09 “A Spy in the House of Love”, 1.12 “Omega”.

On the first anniversary of the day Laurence Dominic was paraded into her office as the answer to all her security wishes, Adelle DeWitt pours two glasses of the best scotch she has hoarded in her cabinet and hands him one as she settles beside him on the couch.

“A year, Mr. Dominic,” she says, tipping her glass towards him in salute. “My congratulations.”

“Didn’t think I’d last this long, ma’am?” he queries in as close to a jovial a tone as she thinks she’s ever heard from him, returning the gesture.

“Not at all,” she counters. “We’ve had fewer security leaks, much less trouble with some of our more…problematic clientele, and minimal disruption in the Dollhouse overall, which can only be good for both our actives and their handlers. No, Mr. Dominic, you are a marked improvement on your predecessor, so I can’t say I’m surprised at all.” She watches his reaction as she sips from her glass, and notes that he looks pleased, if a little uncertain at the compliment. She doesn’t hand them out very often.

“Well,” he says. Then: “Thank you, Miss DeWitt.”

If she were entirely honest with herself, which Adelle DeWitt endeavours to be whenever possible, she would admit that she hadn’t been entirely sure of Laurence Dominic when he was first brought into the Dollhouse. He was, like her, a Rossum appointment, and unlike the handlers and the rest of the Dollhouse staff, his engagement to work here had not been vetted through her office. He’d arrived with a security officer from the Centre, his contract of employment and the compulsory clean background check – former division head of a respected security firm on the east coast, snapped up for the position on his move out to California. 

Her first impressions were of confidence, competence and a certain refinement in tone and manner that matched her own sensibilities very well. Still, he’d been an unknown factor to her, and Adelle disliked being in the dark about anything.

A year working closely beside him, and she can’t say she knows an awful lot more about the man behind the suit. She knows, perhaps, that while he is dedicated to his post, he doesn’t quite harbour the same fierce belief in the Dollhouse’s purpose as she does; that he finds the Actives themselves disconcerting and sometimes contemptible, though she tries to discourage this as subtly as she can. She knows that he is held in awe by some of the staff, in trepidation by others, and that Topher finds him as profoundly exasperating as everyone else generally finds Topher. She knows, moreover, that he has slipped seamlessly into her own daily routine, becoming a quietly reassuring presence at her back whether in this office or making the daily rounds of the Dollhouse. 

She wasn’t exaggerating, either, when she praised his improvement of the ‘House’s security. Dominic is a man who understands completely what is required from his position, and who carries out his job with admirable efficiency, and a minimum of fuss and theatrics, and so she finds they suit each other very well. She slides a folder from the table to her knee, and flips it open.

“We haven’t lost a single active since you joined us”, she says pleasantly, placing one finger against the page. “We have, however, been divested of…” Adelle makes a show of checking, “…around half a dozen security officers, all of whom you naturally replaced with commendable speed.” Hiring and firing of security staff is his purview, of course – she really only has to give the forms a cursory glance and sign her approval - but she still hasn’t quite forgiven him for the period a while back where a new CV seemed to pop up on her desk every other week.

“I like to make sure I get the best from my team. If that means cracking a few heads together-”

“Metaphorically speaking.”

“-Metaphorically speaking, and losing a little dead weight, then that’s the cost of establishing the security force the Dollhouse deserves. I’m not comfortable with liability; I like to know the men working with me. I need to trust them absolutely.” He holds her stare, and she tilts her head slightly before nodding. “On that, Mr. Dominic, we are agreed.” 

Adelle takes another sip of the burning liquid in her glass, aware of his eyes still on her and the question in the air between them. As Dominic watches her, fidgeting slightly with the tumbler between his hands, she lets her gaze sweep the room thoughtfully. 

“Perhaps I should have gotten balloons,” she suggests, and, moment over, she allows herself a smile as he laughs.

~

In his second year, she wakes him with a phone call. It’s 4.15 in the morning, and if she has to be in her office glued to security monitors and day-old CCTV footage, he damn-well does as well.

“Mr. Dominic,” she says in clipped tones as he picks up the phone at home, “It’s DeWitt. You need to get back here immediately.”

His voice is groggy with sleep, but noticeably concerned as he answers. “Are you all right?”

“Me?” she replies, startled. “Yes.” She stops. Starts again. “I-”

“The Dollhouse?”

“The Dollhouse has something of a problem,” she responds archly, regaining her composure as the conversation steers back onto anticipated ground. “Our new friend,” – she pronounces the word with as much distaste as she can muster, which is considerable under the circumstances – “Mr. Ballard has been sticking his nose in where it’s not wanted again. We have video this time. Get here as soon as you can, please.” She replaces the receiver before she hears his affirmative. It’s not necessary: Dominic always follows her orders.

When he arrives – quickly, composedly, impeccably dressed and prepared to work – she fills him in as succinctly as she can, then watches him to gauge how focused he is on the task at hand. She can’t fault him. He skims swiftly through the security reports, making a few notes here and there, stops only to ask her pertinent, pointed questions, and scrutinises the same footage she’s been staring at half the night with a fresh, expert eye.

Ballard, since he popped up on their radar about a fortnight ago, has so far done nothing to elevate him from the category of ‘bloody nuisance’ to ‘genuine threat’, but Adelle is starting to get brassed off at the number of red flags he’s sending up, regardless. A question here and there to the right people, a couple of checks on missing persons whose names correspond to those on her Actives’ register, staking out expensive hotels and residences of the rich where engagements might possibly be expected to take place…she’s had one complaint from a client already. Best nip it in the bud, she thinks.

“A direct approach is going to be too obvious,” he advises, arms folded, leaning one hip against the edge of her desk where she is seated at her computer and ignoring her meaningful look. She sits back in her chair, folds her hands in her lap. “What do you suggest, Mr. Dominic?”

“Misinformation,” he answers. “Misdirection. Send him running around chasing his own tail for a while. We can feed him an occasional snippet of truth,” he carries on, despite her raised eyebrows, “and let him think he’s getting somewhere, spend a few weeks following it up, then pull the rug out from under it.” He shrugs. “If we keep him tied up long enough, his superiors’ll eventually call off the whole investigation for lack of evidence. It’s a bush league job anyway – they don’t believe the Dollhouse even exists.”

“Except those of them on our client list,” she counters, wryly. Dominic smirks.

“I’ll keep him off your back.”

Ah, yes. “Off our backs,” Adelle corrects firmly, tapping her computer mouse to close the file open on screen, and swivelling around to face him. “Mr. Ballard is…an inconvenience to the Dollhouse and a potential menace to all its staff and inhabitants, but I will not let him bring us low.” His expression doesn’t change as she speaks, the slight quirk still playing around his lips, and Adelle goes for broke. 

“Your job, and mine, is to protect the integrity of this Dollhouse with every possible means at our disposal, and to ensure that it remain unscathed and capable of achieving its purpose. The Dollhouse must come first, before all other considerations. Above everything and anything else.” 

She stops just short of ‘do I make myself clear?’, since that seems like over-egging it slightly, and she’s sure he’s appreciated her meaning by now. 

It’s not that she doesn’t find his earlier concern for her wellbeing touching, or that she can’t admit to a slight, guilty gratification that his first instinct at being woken up at silly o’clock in the morning was to be worried about her; it’s just that they may have known one another for two years now, and they may even be verging into relations that she’ll concede as ‘friendly’ instead of ‘professionally respectful’, but there must be a line and it’s her responsibility to draw it somewhere. Her personal safety must be at most his secondary concern, and she trusts him to know it.

If he’s understood her gentle admonishment, however, he makes no sign of it. She’d expected a nod of acknowledgement, or at least for him to look slightly chagrined, but he doesn’t. Instead he remains standing against her desk for a minute, considering her thoroughly, then sweeps up a pile of folders into his hands.

“I’ll get started on Ballard then,” he announces, calmly and she blinks. “Right.”

“Miss DeWitt.”

“Mr. Dominic.”

He strolls towards the door and disappears through it, leaving her unaccustomedly perplexed for a minute or two. She’s not sure if she sorted that out or not, but she assumes she must have done. Shaking the feeling off, Adelle returns to work. Over the next few months Paul Ballard becomes a continual source of irritation but, with Dominic’s efforts, never a serious problem.

If she calls him in the early hours of the morning now, he answers with, “Is everything all right?”, and she supposes that it’s a compromise, of sorts.

~

Time passes and it’s three years since Mr. Dominic arrived at the Dollhouse, a month since Alpha almost tore it apart at the seams. They're still rebuilding, and beneath her implacable exterior she’s tired and deflated, beleaguered by the sheer magnitude of the work required to restore her establishment to working order. She is determined, however, at her core, to see this ‘House back at peak form, and Adelle hasn’t risen to her position in life by backing down when the situations gets tough.

She stands, one hand braced flat against the surface of her desk, fingers brushing the edges of a mountainous pile of reports and request forms, and runs her other hand brusquely over her hair, pushing away a few strands that have escaped the pins holding the rest up at the back of her head. Dominic is standing behind her, and breaks the unhappy silence of the office, stating, “The new security measures we talked about instituting downstairs are all up and running now. I’ve upped the patrols and the manpower, and the replacement guards have settled into the routine pretty quickly.”

She nods, wincing only slightly at the term ‘replacement’. “Good. We’re also back to a full complement of handlers,” she continues, as much for her benefit as his, “and we’re in the process of recruiting one or two final actives, and then…” She lets the sentence trail off, because the only way she can think of to finish it is ‘it’ll be like none of this ever happened’, and they both know that’s not true. “Then that’s it.” Dominic supplies.

“Yes. That’s it,” she echoes, wearily.

The Alpha situation has meant that the past few weeks have been taken up in a tumult of phone calls and meetings, accusations, reprimands, rejoinders, sheer outrage and, finally, strategising. She’s been shuttled back and forth between Tucson and L.A., ambushed in her office by furious company executives, and spent hour upon hour listening to scientific reasoning and recrimination (the upshot of which, as far as she can tell, is that no-one really knows what went wrong). And as one final, colossal indignity, she’d even had to take to a call from the U.K. Dollhouse telling her they were _so sorry, to hear about your…incident. Sure you’re bearing up marvellously etc. Positive Rossum won’t hold this one unfortunate circumstance against an otherwise stellar performance._

Bastards.

In one movement, she slaps the surface of the desk decisively with her palm and turns around with the intention of putting this office and its paperwork behind her for a while and getting home for some sleep. She’s misjudged how closely Dominic is hovering, however, and he doesn’t have enough time to get out of the way before she collides directly with his broad frame. With a startled “Oh!”, Adelle reaches out to steady herself, her hands landing oh his upper arms while he catches her elbows to stop her falling back. “God. Sorry…” 

She stills, the rest of her apology caught in her throat. There are barely centimetres between them, and from here she can feel the heat from his body, smell the sharp, familiar scent of his cologne. His arms are solid under her fingers, hands a warm, firm pressure checking her movement. For a moment, she lets herself register how it feels to be this close to him and they are, unexpectedly, very close. She has the sudden, uncharacteristic impulse to just sink against him for a minute and let him hold her up, be supported for once instead of the one desperately trying to stop everything from coming down around her ears. Abruptly she realises that they’ve been standing like this for over a minute, her eyes fixed on his tie, their measured breathing the only sound in the room, and it’s well past the point where either of them can extricate themselves elegantly.

She raises her eyes to his to find him staring at her with a troubled expression she can’t work out, brow furrowed and jaw tense. They watch each other wordlessly for long seconds, and though Dominic seems to want to say something, he eventually subsides, silent. She draws in a breath with no real idea of what will come out when she goes to speak, but suddenly his face seems very near to hers, and he’s tilting his head slightly and she’s finding it difficult to keep her eyes open. His thumbs are making tiny, gentle circles on her elbows as he pulls her almost imperceptibly closer, and it’s at this moment that Topher chooses to interrupt with the shrill ring of her telephone.

While she’s snapping at Topher down the line, not that he notices, and trying to ignore the hot, embarrassed flush crawling up her shoulders and neck, she hears her door close with a quiet click. Three quarters of an hour later, she instructs herself to stop being such a bloody coward and ventures out of her office down to the Dollhouse, only to be told that Mr. Dominic has left for the night. She exhales in relief as she rides the lift back up to her floor, gathers her things and heads for her car. 

It’s just as well, really, she tells herself. There’s too much hanging in the balance right now, and Dominic has been the one, steady thing she’s had to rely on, an unfailing, unshakable presence throughout this entire nightmare. A friendly face she needs right now. They're just both worn-out a little, and overworked and not thinking properly. She many not be sure of her future with Rossum, but she knows where she stands with Dominic and he with her, and she’s not sure she could deal with any confusion from that quarter at the moment. She’s not convinced she has the strength. 

Still, she can’t entirely ignore what happened this evening. She’s recognised the underlying attraction for what it is now, and it’s something that has to be dealt with. The next morning they are both perfectly ordinary towards one another, and if she’s a little kinder in her manner of address, and his smiles are a little warmer and more frequent than usual, she doesn’t mention it and neither does he. 

Two days after that, Miss Lonelyhearts is added to the client register, and life continues as normal. 

~

_“I never lied to you about my methods, or my priorities.”  
“You lied about your intentions.”_

They never make it to the fourth year.

Saunders says, “I know you were close to Mr. Dominic”, and the scorpion sting of betrayal bites deeper into her gut than any stray bullet from a misfired gun.

“He was an employee with whom I worked closely. There’s a difference.”

“It’s okay to feel something,” Saunders chides, and as Adelle walks to the office window she consider the irony of a lesson in personality from this particular woman.

“That would imply I’d lost something.”

“Didn’t you?”

She catches sight of Victor then, his face and form bringing back the memories of that knock on the front door this morning; Langton’s wary face and quiet voice and almost, almost-sympathetic gaze; the fear and anger and agony in Dominic’s eyes as the blue light flashed and pulsed around the chair, and she couldn't (wouldn't) do anything but stand there with pain piercing her side and watch. She says,

“Nothing I can’t live without.” 

And she wonders if that’s true.


End file.
